Storm
by Crookykanks
Summary: With her attitude towards water, surely she would be frightened of the rain.


Ominous thunder boomed overhead, and the girls screeched. Heels clicked rapidly against the cold, damp stones as flying skirts revealed flailing pale ankles. Galinda clutched wildly at the empty air in front of her as she dashed around the corner, losing Pfannee and ShenShen to the slam of their dormitory door. Milla and Galinda fought on, screaming and jumping a few feet to avoid the bright flash from the suddenly impossibly large and feeble windows. Soon, a shaking Milla was also lost to a quickly closed doorway and Galinda was left to fend the rest of the hall for herself. Feet aching, ankles twisting, heels nearly snapping, she did and roughly thrust herself through the doorway banging it shut behind her.

Galinda heaved out a loud sigh and allowed herself to fall against the door and slide to the unforgiving floor. She pushed her tired arms around the bulk of her dress to gather her knees up to her chest, as though this would defend her from the onslaught of light and sound just beyond the window. She remained there for a moment, gasping for breath and letting her racing heart regain it's typical pace. It took several minutes for Galinda to restore her composure as each time she began willing herself to stand, a flash or roar from beyond her walls would force out a shriek and make her cuddle all the more fiercely into the sturdy wood behind her. It took a great crash of thunder to make her leap from her position and onto the furniture furthest from the offending window and storm beyond. Galinda was barely conscious of her own actions as she huddled on the edge of her roommate's bed, clutching the worn pillow to her heaving chest. She sniffled into the tattered blankets and muffled her shrieks in them. It was hardly a calming experience, but she did find some comfort in the careworn bedding.

Galinda looked over to her own bed, stuffed with pillows and comforters much more suited to the burrowing a storm of this magnitude should have required. Replacing the pillow and blankets of her roommate, Galinda made to dash across the room to her familiar comforts, but was stopped by a fresh assault of rain and a clash of light potent enough to shake the very stones beneath her. Galinda grabbed onto the pillow beside her again and began to heavily sob into it. She wished for company. Her father's arms to hold her. Her mother's voice to soothe her. Her friends' gossipings to sedate her. Even her roommate's chilled scythings to distract her.

Speaking of, where _was_ her roommate? What with that odd attitude toward water, surely she was frightened of the rain. Classes had been changing when the downpour began, and Miss Elphaba Thropp was _never_ late to class. Of course, Miss Elphaba Thropp was never within a mile of water either. Galinda wondered which oddity would take precedence in this situation. Mildly, Galinda stroked the pillow and studied her roommate's side of the room. No, not a single bath item in sight. Of course, those odd little bottles must have been lotion or something. Miss Elphaba was not filthy by any stretch of the imagination. Unless perhaps, she had run into a bad episode with a novice painter in the Emerald City. Galinda chuckled softly at the thought. _How odd_, she thought, _that she is so soothing and distracting in her absence, when she stands out most in one's presence._ Galinda then realized she had spent time contemplating the girl and quickly shunned her thoughts. Her return to the present was greeted by another ground shaking crash from outside. Galinda buried her face in the old pillow again to the sounds of the raging floods outside pounding against the dorm window.

Later, Galinda would not be able to relate how long she stayed there, sobbing helplessly into her despised roommate's old beddings. The storm, she would recall, lasted the rest of the afternoon, and all classes were cancelled due to its ferocious attacks on the Shiz Campus. Miss Thropp still had not returned. Galinda was growing bored of her fear, but could not tear herself away from its grip long enough to get past the window to her own bed. For distraction purposes, she once again studied her roommate's belongings. A book on the dresser, a lone boot beside the bed (and a rather ugly one at that), a mess of papers by the bedpost, wherever Miss Elphaba was, she must have gone there in a hurry to leave any sort of 'mess' behind.

Galinda paused and thought about that sentiment again.

_She_.

What an odd way to think of her roommate. Of Miss Elphaba. Of the strange green figure that stalked the halls and unwillingly shared her room. _She_. The term implied a strange humanity (not to mention femininity) to the girl, as though Galinda could actually have something in common with her roommate, being a '_she_' herself. It wasn't something she had ever thought of before, though surely she had used the pronoun to reference her roommate at some point. Galinda thought of ShenShen and Milla, '_she_'s in the highest degree, and tried to compare them to the green girl. The experiment failed miserably. Galinda shook her head and took another approach, trying to imagine Miss Elphaba with a mother. A father. As a child. No, that was a silly image indeed. Imagine the little green stalk with those glasses and her hair in double braids, her pointed little nose (which Galinda saw as far too long for the rounded childish face) stuck between the covers of a book the size of the child herself. And to think of Miss Elphaba with chubby fingers! The very idea was simply laughable. No, surely she had been born with those sharp, twig-like digits. Galinda raised her own creamy hand in front of her face in comparison. She had only just stopped studying her fingers and begun to notice the chips in her nails when the door banged open.

Miss Elphaba herself stalked in without a word and did something Galinda had never once seen her do before. She marched straight into the bathroom. Galinda, hand still raised in front of her, but beginning to droop from lack of attention, watched in awe. Miss Elphaba reappeared a moment later clutching a towel (one of her own, surprisingly. Or perhaps a campus towel, Galinda couldn't be sure.) She pressed the towel to her face, and Galinda suddenly had the odd feeling that perhaps her roommate would simply melt into the towel, her skin staining its white fibers with its luminescent verdigris. Of course no such thing happened, and Galinda shook her head to clear her ridiculous thoughts. The towel hit skin and dried up any invisible moisture that Miss Elphaba imagined to be there. Galinda watched silently as Miss Elphaba continued the ritual, pressing rather than rubbing the towel against any exposed skin. It was only after the towel (as dry as it had been before) was tossed heedlessly to the floor that either girl spoke.

"What?"

Galinda started as she suddenly found herself the object of her roommate's nearly infamous skeptic stare. She shook her head lightly, curls bouncing, and swept her hands down to her sides.

"What do you mean, 'What', Miss Elphaba?" She asked casually, tilting her head and shaking her curls innocently.

"I mean what the hell are you doing in my bed, Miss Galinda?" The acerbic tone of the simple question cut any words sharply from Galinda's throat, and she felt her face heat up. She had forgotten for a moment. Quickly, Galinda skittered down from the bed feet first and scuttled across the room, jumping away from the window as the thunder growled warningly beyond. All the way she refused to meet her roommate's unwavering gaze, though Miss Elphaba's boring eyes burned into her back. It was only when Galinda had crawled sheepishly into her own bed and buried her face in her own pillow that Miss Elphaba moved (Galinda could hear her rustling the bed sheets as though she was afraid that they had been stained pink.) For a moment, the rustles of covers continued as both girls situated themselves on their respective beds and concentrated on not looking in each other's direction. It took Galinda a minute to notice the sudden stillness from the other side of the dorm through the dying rainfall.

"Miss Galinda?" Raising her eyes slowly, Galinda noted that her roommate had the most uncanny ability to stand perfectly still, as though any unnecessary movement was unworthy of her energy. Galinda hummed a noncommittal reply.

"Why is my pillow _wet_?" There was a slight hiss in Miss Elphaba's voice and the rustlings began again as she shoved the covers away from her and staked back to the still dry towel on the dormitory floor. Galinda murmured a response, but her roommate seemed to neither notice nor care. Pressing the towel once more to her face and leaving her back to Galinda, Miss Elphaba stood for a moment like an oddly placed statue. In other circumstances, Galinda might have thought that the green girl, flushed from Lurline knew what (the storm, perhaps), might have been crying. After a moment the towel, not quite as dry anymore (Galinda really _had_ sobbed, she supposed) was dropped again and Miss Elphaba's voice cut through the heavy, still air.

"My things," she began slowly, her serrated voice even more harsh than usual, "no matter how decrepit they may seem to you, are _not_ your personal towels, Miss Galinda." Galinda couldn't help but wince at the way her roommate spat out her name. "If you are simply too filthy to risk using your own cloths--"

"I wasn't dirty," Galinda called out. Surprisingly, Miss Elphaba let her speak. She seemed to be having some trouble with her diction. Perhaps the storm had rattled her more than Galinda knew. "And the rain didn't get me wet. I was frightened." Miss Elphaba's eyebrows rose (in perfect unison for once) and her jaw slackened unattractively.

"_You wet yourself on my pillow?_" she hissed. Galinda jumped.

"NO!" She cried, clutching her own bedding tight to her chest and curling protectively into herself against the anger that was sure to come, "I was _crying_ you insensitive freak!" Miss Elphaba's face softened remarkably and her eyes were cast to the ground. She flushed from embarrassment (Galinda had no doubt) and sat down gently on the edge of her bed. Galinda looked down at her own pillow, unstained by tears, and did not speak. For several minutes the only sound was of the rain, which seemed disinclined to continue and yet unwilling to lift.

The two girls shifted uncomfortably on their beds, neither speaking to each other for several minutes. Finally, when Galinda could take it no more, she slid out of her bed and made for her dresser and night things. She had only just pulled out a nightgown when the silence was broken.

"What about?"

"What do you mean, Miss Elphaba?" Galinda sighed. Her voice caught unexpectedly in her throat.

"What were you so frightened about that you cried?" Galinda looked up at her roommate, and suddenly, the '_she_' fit so well. The humanity in her face was undeniable, all the sharpness had melted from Galinda's tears, and the right side of her face had a pinkish tinge to it. Funny, that hadn't been there before.

"The storm. They've always scared me. And then you weren't here to distract me," Miss Elphaba chuckled, a low throaty noise that was quite natural sounding (at least compared to her typical cackle), "and I just felt so alone."

"Well why didn't you stop at one of the other dorms then? Surely you passed one of your socialite friend's dorms on the way up?" Miss Elphaba stood and began walking toward her own dresser.

"All of them, actually. I just thought, I don't know, perhaps you would be here to chide me and I'd forget my fear, even for a moment." Galinda thought how odd it was, that though she'd never seen her roommate smile, _really_ smile not just a smirk, she could feel it's presence from across the dorm. Looking over her shoulder, Galinda hoped to catch a glimpse of it, but found her roommate's back instead. Sighing, she took her gown and closed the drawer, beginning to slip out of her day clothes.

"It is better to be with me than your friends on certain occasions, then?"

"Oh how like you to ask a thing like that, Miss Elphaba!" But Galinda snickered through her scold. "But yes, I believe it is better to lose your fear to harmless banter than to huddle in fearful masses of something you really know can't hurt you." Miss Elphaba had no retort to this, and went about her nightly chores without another word or upward glance. Galinda watched her just to be sure.

"Where were you anyway?" Galinda piped up after a minute, "It took you so long to get here I was partially afraid you'd drowned."

"I'm honored that you care so greatly for my well being," Miss Elphaba began.

"I didn't say I was contemplating going out to rescue you." Galinda smirked back. Miss Elphaba acknowledged the point with a curled lip and a tilt of her head.

"In any case I took the indoor routes, which took a bit longer than usual, especially as they were crowded. I'll bet the rain made it seem like ages in here. I was only about ten minutes behind you, I'm sure." Miss Elphaba turned over her pillow so that the side Galinda had buried her tears in was pressed against the mattress and pulled back her covers once more. Galinda watched in fascination. Surely Miss Elphaba wasn't bothered by a few tears on some old cloth. Perhaps she was much more worried about hygiene than Galinda could have imagined. Climbing into her bed, Miss Elphaba raised one hand to rub her right cheek gingerly (it was still pinkish and rough) and slid under the covers. Uncharacteristically, she laid down facing Galinda, leaving the sore cheek in the open air and wincing as she continued to rub it.

"How did you get that rash anyhow, Miss Elphaba?"

"It's not a rash," Miss Elphaba's voice was airy and soft, though it had regained its typical serrated quality, "it's a burn. And your tears caused it."

Galinda didn't know if she was being serious or not, so she simply laid down on her back and blew out the candles by her bed.

"I'm sorry, Miss Elphaba. Fresh dreams."

"Never mind it, Miss Galinda. Fresh dreams to you as well."

Silence came across the room as the rain finally died away.


End file.
